This invention relates to the treatment of narcotic addiction and particularly addiction to opiate drugs such as heroin.
Narcotic addiction and its treatment may be said to involve two factors. One may be considered primarily physiological and involves all the acute sickness withdrawal symptoms which occur when the narcotic drug is discontinued, including nausea, chills, nervousness, etc. The second factor may be considered both physiological and psychological and involves the immediate rewarding and euphoric effects of taking the drug, a strong desire or hunger to resume taking the drug after withdrawal, anxiety, etc.
It is known that both categories of drug addiction effects can be blocked, and withdrawal or detoxification effected, by treatment with agents, of which methadone is the most widely used. But methadone is itself addictive and its use in withdrawal is desirably restricted to treatment periods of not more than a few weeks to carry the addict through the acute withdrawal stage. Methadone is not a good agent for maintaining abstinence from the drug after withdrawal is achieved. The search continues for a satisfactory maintenance agent, for use after withdrawal with methadone, and the answer has not previously been found.
The present invention is based on the discovery that known medicaments, previously used as beta-receptor blocking agents, or beta-adrenergic blocking agents, primarily in the treatment of cardiac arrythmias, have a surprising and powerful effect in blocking major psychological effects and at least some physiological effects of opiate drugs, including particularly the immediate rewarding and euphoric effects, and recurring "hunger" for the drug. The agents effective in this way are not found to relieve the acute physiological opiate-withdrawal symptoms. Accordingly while these agents do not appear adequate alone to support withdrawal from opiate drugs, they are of use to supplement agents such as methadone in withdrawal, and more importantly, to provide a maintenance and supportive treatment following withdrawal through the acute sickness stage with such agents as methadone.